TRANSFORMATION

God really began to do a miracle in our family when I was around 18 years old. Somehow through all of this indoctrination, I began to ask questions. Something about what I was experiencing didn’t line up with what I was seeing and reading in God’s Word. Gothard defined grace as “the desire and power to do God’s will (i.e. follow the rules).” But I couldn’t find that concept of grace in the scriptures. It took a long time for me to figure out what it really was, but I knew something just wasn’t right.

I can think of two major influences that really helped things to start clicking for me. One was a Bible study entitled The Search for Significance that my dad got for me when I was in the midst of my OCD crisis. The concepts I learned there, though they didn’t catch on right away, stuck with me. Concepts such as the fact that my identity is not in what I do, but who I am in Christ. The other influence, believe it or not, was a speaker at an ATI conference. I to this day don’t know if this man was intending to help students escape from the bondage of legalism, but he spoke on the topic of Christian liberty. He basically talked about how not everything is black and white, and that it is in those “gray areas” that we must seek God’s face.

It was under these influences that the walls began to crumble. Both of those concepts were antithetical to what was ingrained in me. I always thought that everything was black and white and that my personal value was based on how well I followed the rules. The process of change was slow, but things began happening.

The only problem was that my parents hadn’t yet seen the light, and this began a very rough patch in our lives. I actually did become very angry and verbally hateful. They viewed me as a rebel and forced me to attend more of Bill Gothard’s seminars. There were arguments and threats, and I didn’t know what to do. I tried to tell them what I was seeing in my training center experiences, but they didn’t understand.

About that time, a ministry called Midwest Christian Outreach released a book (A Matter of Basic Principles) exposing corruption and heresy in Gothard’s teachings. My mother read it, and I don’t know why this particular book did the trick, but it did. My parents began to independently verify certain accounts and events laid out in the book, and when they did, we pulled out of ATI completely. We lost a number of friends, but thankfully we already attended a Southern Baptist church, so we didn’t have to leave everything behind.

It was then that I started college (an ATI taboo), and began ministry at a new church. There was a lot of debugging that I had to do. It was very difficult to undo 15 years of thinking, especially when those 15 years were the formative years. I to this day struggle with legalism, pride, dogmatism, and feeling insecure in my relationship with God. Each year gets better, but these things run deep and I’ve had to do a lot of forgiving and forgetting.

One huge issue that came up in the “debugging stage” was my relationship with my wife Rashel. Some of you know that my wife Rashel was divorced out of an abusive marriage prior to our relationship. Within ATI circles, the fact that I pursued a relationship with her was considered sin. I was told by those within that circle that were I to marry her, God would take His hand of blessing off of my life. I remember to this day nights when all hell was breaking loose in my mind. I struggled with fear of God’s abandonment. Unfortunately, for a while my fears prevailed. I broke off our relationship for several months, something that honestly took us a long time (even into our marriage) to fully deal with. Thankfully, I was able to work through these issues spending a lot of time in scripture, and Rashel and I did get married. And yes, I lost some relationships because of it. And no, God has not taken His hand of blessing off of my life. If anything, the opposite is true.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

So…why do I share all of this? I guess there are two reasons: as a word of warning and as a word of pleading.

To those who are unfamiliar with this world, I share these things with you so that you are aware. The doctrine of separation has resulted in many spiritual casualties. The problem with believing that you can keep sin out of your children’s lives is the truth that sin already dwells within their hearts. And when a child doesn’t experience personally the love of Jesus Christ and the transforming power of the gospel, then the rules mean nothing except captivity and oppression. I know personally of numerous young people that have completely abandoned their walk with Christ, and I have heard that there are hundreds more. I know of broken families, addictions, rapes, abuse, and even murders that can be linked to a culture of legalism. This is NOT to say that these things don’t happen in non ATI families. They do. But these problems really hit home to me because they are so deeply personal.

To those of you within the ATI world, I would begin by pleading with you to ask yourself these questions:

• On what do I base my relationship with Christ? What I do, or who I am in Him?
• Concerning my beliefs about music, dress, dating, etc: do I believe what I believe because somebody told me to believe it, or do I believe it because God showed me through His Word?
• What is Christian liberty, and what is its impact on the doctrine of separation? (Romans 14 is powerful in this area)
• What does the Bible say about grace?

I fear that there is little hope for change in ATI long as Bill Gothard is still at the helm. Because of his continuous misuse of scripture and heretical teachings, I see no way to live within that world and remain true to the word of God. The dangers are simply too great. I believe that the scariest part of ATI is the fact that those within those groups have no clue as to the danger of their situation. They are simply brain-washed to believe that the world outside is evil, and that the only safe place is within the group. It literally takes an act of God for them to be freed. This is one of the reasons I believe in the ministry of Recovering Grace.

In conclusion, let me just say that I hope my story is of value to someone out there. My journey has not been easy, but at the end of the day, I know God led me down this road for a purpose. Perhaps he knew that without understanding the bondage of legalism I would never understand how simply amazing is His grace.